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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23006593">Bright and Blood Red</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Val_Creative/pseuds/Val_Creative'>Val_Creative</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Stranger Things (TV 2016)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Blood, Canon-Typical Violence, Dark, Eleven | Jane Hopper Needs A Hug, F/F, Femslash, Gore, Heavy Angst, Introspection, Minor Character Death, Mutual Pining, Near Future, Post-Canon, Romantic Friendship, Sad Eleven | Jane Hopper, Teenagers, Underage Drinking, Winter</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 09:48:57</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>473</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23006593</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Val_Creative/pseuds/Val_Creative</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The past catches up to El. She buries it herself.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Eleven | Jane Hopper/Maxine "Max" Mayfield</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Writing Rainbow Red</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Bright and Blood Red</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConvenientAlias/gifts">ConvenientAlias</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Thank you to the mod(s) of <b>Writing Rainbow</b> for letting me in and for hosting another round! I decided to be bold and offer to do "Any fandom you have a vague recollection that I like" from people and I was matched with my giftee who likes Stranger Things and Elmax! Fabulous taste! I used your tags <b>Blood in the Snow</b> and <b>Red petals like drops of blood</b> and <b>Red Flowers</b> to inspire this. I went with a more repetitive and disjointed writing style for this. I hope it works out. I hope you guys like it. 💖💖💖 </p><p>Any thoughts/comments are completely welcome!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p> </p><p>*</p><p>
  <span>It's two am. Dark wine sloshes in Max's glass and all El can think about is blood.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The taste of blood dripping, sliding and slicking down her throat. Warm and nauseating and slick. Slick. Slick as glass. She remembers glass crackling like twinkling, powdery snow. Her bedroom window in Hopper's old cabin exploded around her.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>He's comin' for you…</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>El could only muffle out a scream into bright red palms and writhe on her floor, choking for air. Red, red slicks against El's wide-opening lips and the tip of her tongue and on her cheeks. She could only rock herself and think. Think about the gentle sway of wheat out in the field… long and frost-covered… the abandoned van… blood, blood so warm and bright melting on snow…</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>He's comin'…</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Max sloshes the bright, blood red wine and laughs over a joke on "The Facts of Life" playing in deafening volume in front of them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She's red, too. She's always red to El. Red with all of her sunny, curly hair pinned up. Max's thin, red-glossed lips. It doesn't look right. She's supposed to be in jeans and zip-up hoodies and all of Max's fingers taped with dirtied, peeling Band-Aids. The skirt is too high, exposing her little, white thighs when Max gets up to pee, and El can smell perfume on Max attempting to drown out the odor of Billy's cigarette stash. Honeysuckle and crisp red apple. Red as sin. Red, red, because this is what Max thinks now.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It's still two am. El sits on the couch cushion next to her and only think about wintry, heavy mist. The van chasing her down. Blood slick under El's nostrils, pouring out. It pours down the back of her throat. A man's seedy, dark voice and his laugh.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>You can keep runnin'…</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Red petals like drops of blood in the snow. El's blood dripped down her chin and melted into the snow. She backed away from the dead body melting too. His head all blood and bright. Bright and blood and gone. It was gone. El could see the red as clearly as Max's bright, soft petals. They laid by the river. She crushed Lucas's bouquet, sticking rose petals wetly to El's skin.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Brenner's gonna find you anyway…</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Max's forefinger brushed against El's opening mouth, tasting riverwater and warmth and her. All of her. El tastes her now, dark and wine and red, their lips skimming when Max leans over. Her overly glossy lips smirk, murmuring out for a daze-eyed El.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It's two twenty two am and El doesn't know where Max got the wine on Tuesday night, or where Max's parents are, and why her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Why.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Why Max chose her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(She left the man in the snowy, frozen river. And his van. Melty, blood-drenched snow vanished under another four feet of powder.)</span>
</p><p>*</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
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